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***SchwarzNarr*** · 05-22-2021, 09:02 PM

Please split 50% to @WithTheMooseand 50% to @SchwarzNarr

Hey guys, it’s WithTheMoose and SchwarzNarr here and we’re looking to do some talking about all things hockey, and the SHL. As many of you have maybe now realized, we’re both new to this league, we joined at the same time as a part of the Season 61 trade deadline class (so, creating during Season 59), but we just wanted to spend some time continuing to share our thoughts, earn a little bit of money in the league, since well, everyone needs that haha, and just make ourselves a little bit more known. It’s also our attempt at trying to learn a little bit more about hockey, because, to be quite frank, neither of us know anything about hockey.

Anyway, without further ado, let’s get started:

S: So let’s get started with joining the SHL in the first place. Had you ever considered joining another sim league, that required a little bit of work, outside of the International Simulation Football League or not really?

W: Honestly, I had never really considered it because I always felt like it would be too much pressure to perform or max earn. That’s just who I am, if I’m going to join another league, I have to be at the top of the top. For that reason, the only other league I have ever even considered, was Super Casual because you don’t have to do any further earning. It’s just an activity check. I know I had considered PBE a few times because I have several ISFL friends who are in PBE, and they’ve tried to talk me into it, but baseball just doesn’t interest me whatsoever. Mixed in with the disuasion of having to do a little bit of extra work, I also don’t like the sport. That said, I have never really watched hockey at all, but it is something that interests me simply because of the stuff like the hits and the fights, which fits in with the realm of football that I am really familiar with and actually enjoy. And when Corey actually approached us and kept mentioning it, I was actually still against it, because I didn’t want to put in the extra work. I already have a huge nest egg in the ISFL and because of that I haven’t really needed to put work in for ages in order to max earn. So, I just ignored him at first, but he kept bringing the league up time and time again, and I absolutely love Corey, so me and Schwarz talked about it and joked about it a few times. We just gave in and signed up. It was the right time and Schwarz was entering a time when she could actually have free time to do media and write up these silly interviews between us, among some other articles she’s done on her own.

S: Yeah, I have to agree that it wasn’t something I really had considered. When I joined my first sim league, I really didn’t think that I would be able to continue with it, or that I was going to like it, at all, but I kind of got hooked. You presented the idea of joining about two years ago, but it wasn’t until last year when I was getting bored with Covid and everything that I relented and gave in. After a year in the ISFL, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to deal with another league, writing more media, earning more money and managing multiple tasks. The one benefit of here is that we have those affiliation tasks, so once we were fully approved and able to do point tasks and other tasks, we can kind of have that dual work going for us, and it’s less work. Like you said, it seemed like the right time, too. We’ve been joking about it for awhile, and Corey mentioned it was the trade deadline, so we were able to join at that optimal time. I’m a teacher and with about three weeks left of school, it just felt right. I’m going to have some more time on my hands, and I just wanted to get to know some more amazing people who are only in the SHL.

W: Yeah, it was actually kind of funny. I wanted you to join the ISFL because I had kind of become obsessed with sim leagues all together. It has become a really big part of my life. I was like hey, you’re my best friend here, we weren’t dating at the time, and I wanted you to become involved with this thing that has taken a really critical role in my life. You didn’t actually seem interested at all.

S: Nope, I wasn’t. I remember hearing you tell me that you write little essays about your player to make them better and it just sounded so ridiculous at the time. Now that I'm here, writing about my player is definitely fun. I've had a lot of fun with it, but more than anything I realized it was just a giant chatroom, basically. If you had sold it like that when you first asked, I totally would have joined right away.

W: I was actually going to comment on that too, about the chat rooms. It had never actually occurred to me that you spend a lot more time chatting with other players in these leagues, than you actually do working on your player. So really it is just a chatroom with some side activities attached. It was still great though, for you to come in and you actually realized just how obsessed I was with the league and how much I had done with it. You were blown away by this big giant thing I was involved with, and you were surprised that there was this huge part of my life that we never really talked about. And once you had shown disinterest, I just never brought it up again, because I didn’t want to talk about something you weren’t interested in. So, now I get to enjoy you going back and stalking my old articles and old discussions to see everything I was doing.

S: For sure. Switching topics a little, and thinking about hockey, we’ve both talked about how we don’t really know much about hockey, but I know for me, it’s much more of a “Hey, I’ve watched the Red Wings when they were like super big in the late 90s with Yzerman and Federov, and other players I can’t remember. They were winning cups, I knew they existed, but outside of that, I haven’t paid any attention to hockey over the years. Where does your hockey knowledge actually sit?

W: Oh god. My hockey knowledge sits at absolutely zero. I watched the movie Miracle a few times, because it’s really enjoyable, but I don’t actually know what is happening when they’re on the ice, because the movie is a lot more about what happened off of the ice. So I’m really clueless about all aspects of hockey. I don’t even know the names of any teams, or where they are located. I don’t even know what the official name of the hockey league is called in the U.S.

S: The NHL. National Hockey League.

W: I don’t know any hockey terminology whatsoever. I’m only familiar with the Red Wings now because you have mentioned them a few times. I also now know about the Penguins, because funnily enough, despite never having watched hockey in my life, my phone has been stalking me and has noticed that I am on a hockey forum and that I am obsessed with penguins the animal, so my phone started giving me spontaneous updates every time the penguins would play.

S: Heck the Penguins.

W: That’s what you had told me, and apparently a few other people agree. So now all I really know about hockey is heck the Penguins. But I still really don’t have any stakes in hockey at all, outside of you saying I should cheer for the Red Wings. But someone else is trying to get me to cheer for the Stars. But I saw the Lightning and thought it was a cool branding, but absolutely everyone has told me that I should not cheer for the Lightning. That seems to be the only thing that is unanimous so far.

S: It’s funny that you mention not knowing hockey terminology. I remember looking at some terms when I was trying to write an article to start off and try and get some early cash, and I kept just being absolutely perplexed. Half of the hockey terms are food references, and the other half are sexual references, and it just felt like a very weird sport. I could maybe give you three hockey terms that I half-knew before joining the league. Icing, face-offs and shootouts, and that’s about it. I don’t even know what icing is, I just remember the whistle getting blown all the time for it in games.

W:Yeah I knew none of this. It even took me some time to remember that the little plastic circle thing they have in the rink is called a puck. So this entire experience has been a bit of a culture shock, as I start from ground zero. And it’s funny because I’ve had to ask a couple of questions that made some of the other people in the league make jokes where they weren’t sure if I was serious or not.

S: Here’s a pro-tip to anyone who helps either of us out in the future. If we’re asking a question about hockey, the league, or the sim, we’re 100% serious and have no idea. I think I had to clarify today that centers, left wingers and right wingers were all considered forwards.

W: I will say, not that I’ve gotten more involved with the league and have started to learn more about it, I can tell that if I actually put some effort into learning the sport, I would actually enjoy it. And overall, I really am enjoying the league. Like I said before, I had been really hesitant to get involved, but now that I am, I’ve gotten really excited about the prospect of the draft and doing some new media and kind of expand on my own players history, because he has been in a couple sim leagues already, and now this is just the next branch of his story, and it’s been fun to write about.

S: I have to agree with that. I know we both kind of translated our players over from the ISFL, but I know that I’m excited about learning about the sport, applying that to media and point tasks, and really just involving myself in something new. One of the pieces I’m most excited about attempting, again, hopefully, is I had made a massive choose your own adventure in the ISFL, that was actually interactive. It was about 25,000 words, tons of choices, and it got a little bit too big to manage, I won’t lie. But I think knowing that hockey has fewer choices to start with (let’s be honest, football has a ton of positions to pick from), I think it would be a much more manageable task over here, and something that I really hope to do in the next few months.

W: Yeah, I was really disappointed to find out you were giving up on that project. So I’m looking forward to seeing you get involved in something like that here. Another thing I’ve been really excited about since joining this league are all of the teams and brandings. Being from a football background, you don’t see a lot of unique brandings. It tends to be stuff like lions and bears and types of birds. For the most part, in this league, you really get some stuff that is off the wall and more fitting toward the local cultures of the cities that they’re founded in. You have things like the Whalers and the Timber, and the Battleborn. That’s just on the juniors level.

S: Totally. The differences in the branding are great. I know a few seasons ago (maybe more than a few), all of the teams in the SHL updated their brandings to be completely and 100% made by the SHL for the SHL so they could begin selling it on merchandise without fear. I think seeing all of the amazingly talented graphics people that are in this league, coupled with the push to get some brandings that are unique and something that everyone wants to kind of purchase and own has really made them pop. I already own a fake football league jersey, I can’t wait to buy some hockey apparel for my SHL team too.

W: I will say, one thing that has probably helped me get excited about joining this league, has been joining Vancouver off of waivers. They have a really solid pair of general managers with Python and Dex and they have an incredible core of alumni that are constantly in the locker room. Whenever I first joined the league, I wasn’t sure how active I would be, because the rookie chat and the general chat were both kind of dead. And people had told me that people in the SHL were more used to doing things via forums. In fact, the Whalers had originally scouted me through a forum message, and I admittedly ignored them because that isn’t something that really happens in the ISFL, and when it does happen, it’s usually because those teams are mostly dead or poorly managed. So I waited a few days to see if I would get any other offers, and when I didn’t I finally messaged them back and asked them if they had room for me. Luckily, they did, and I am absolutely ecstatic that they did, because their locker room has been pretty close to or on par with my ISFL team’s locker room in terms of activity, and everyone there is incredibly welcoming, incredibly helpful and have really helped me get into the league more. I know that they’re not one of the better teams in the juniors at the moment, but that hasn’t really mattered. They have been really fun, win or loss, and now that we are in the playoffs, it has been an absolute delight with me coming in the locker room and screaming about how we did the things, even if I don’t really know what those things are.

S: It’s called winning.

W: Haha yeah. I did a bit of a write up on Kelowna when I was working on some other stuff, so I know that Kelowna is a very good team, and very well may have one of the most stacked rosters in the entire history of the juniors. We made it out of the first round in Vancouver, but unluckily drew Kelowna in this next round. That said, I’m still going into the locker room and talking about how Kelowna only has a few more days in the playoffs, because you gotta have dreams.

S: Yeah, your playoff dreams have gone a little bit better than mine. I signed with St. Louis. I had had a lot of good conversations with Capt. Blitzkrieg when I was scouting him for the ISFL draft, actually, and so it felt kind of good just to see that connection again right away. We fought really hard in the playoffs, and we took it to a 7 game series, but ultimately, we weren’t able to pull out that final win to move on to the next round.

W: Yeah it was really unfortunate you guys lost that final game, because we were actually depending on you guys to win it so we could avoid getting Kelowna. I think if you guys won, you would have had to face Kelowna. Now though, we might as well knock them out, since we were going to have to face them in the finals anyway.

S: Any thoughts about the draft? It’s been quite awhile since you were drafted. Me too. Almost a year, a little bit longer for you? I’m excited about the live draft process. It’s not something I think I would want to do as a GM. We’re always ready for the draft, but there’s something about seeing your favorite prospects snapped up the pick before yours and just not having the time to mentally be sad about it because you’re on the clock. That gives me a little bit of anxiety. But as a draftee I am all for it. I’ll let others manage here in order to be drafted live, haha.

W: I am incredibly excited for this upcoming draft because I never really got the experience of not knowing where I was going in any draft I’ve ever been in. When I came into the ISFL I exploded on the scene and wrote up tens of thousands of words of media in just a couple of days before the draft. As a result, everyone knew that I was going to be the first overall pick in the developmental league. Then, I only expanded on that, by writing almost 300,000 words of media before the ISFL draft came around. And again, there was no question, in anyone’s mind, that I was going to be first overall. There wasn’t any sort of recreate that could even come close to me, and no other rookie was going to produce that volume of media. It all culminated with an incredible mock draft that I did, that actually a lot of GMs used instead of scouting, that ended up being almost 67,000 words. That was what basically locked me in as the first overall pick. Then on my second player, I was actually the general manager of my team at the time, which meant that I had to be taken in the second round, at their pick. Then in the super casual league, I only joined because there were a lot of guys in New Orleans that enjoyed it. So I was familiar with the general managers of a team called the Rush, and they told me that they were going to be picking me and C9Van at one and two. So at no point have I ever been surprised about where I might go.

S: Yeah, I don’t think that either of us have any idea where we might go in this draft. We’re obviously trying to make a bit of a name for ourselves here, as players who some people know from the ISFL and some people who aren’t there wouldn’t have any clue. I think we’ve done a decent job so far, we’ve tried to write some media that makes a big impact, but I think for us right now, this piece is really about just showing us as people, users, and getting excited about the SHL in general. I know that a lot of people have been wondering if we absolutely have to play together, since we’re dating, but I just want to make sure it’s clear and on the record that we don’t have to play together. I think it will be a little bit exciting if we’re drafted to different teams, to have that little bit of a competitive edge. It’s not something we’re opposed to, who knows what happens down the road. I know I’m excited about trying out free agency at some point in my career, but I kind of said that too in the ISFL and after a season just completely dedicated myself to the team and can’t imagine leaving it. Maybe that happens here too.

W: Yeah, for sure, it’d be great fun to play with each other, but especially in the juniors draft, it just doesn’t make that much of a difference, because we are both going to be top earners and probably won’t be there for more than a couple of seasons.

S: Hey, I’m willing to stay down however many seasons a team needs me to. I’m just here to have fun and do whatever my teams need.

W: Oh yeah, I also would be willing to stay down as many seasons as needed, but usually when you’re a max earner in any league, you aren’t asked to stay down very long. That said, free agency is something that really appeals to the both of us. We both have a tendency to get attached to our origin teams though, and not wanting to leave them. But, it would be nice to, for once, be able to try it out.

S: Thoughts about expansion that’s going to be happening? Would you be interested in going to an expansion team in the SHL draft?

W: Expansion is really exciting when you’re on the players side of things, and considerably less exciting when you’re on the general manager's side of things. As we are players though, my only disappointment with expansion is that it happened this season, instead of happening next season, so we could have possibly been the first players drafted to an expansion team. As it is, we’ll still be in some of the early drafts for those teams. I’ve always been interested in joining a new team that doesn’t have a lot of history, and working to make it great. So getting drafted to an expansion team would be fantastic. I actually had a bit of a fantasy when we found out that expansion was coming,t hat with the two of us being potentially elite defenders in the future, that we could go to an expansion team in the draft or in free agency in the future, and really set the groundwork for a defensive tradition in a new team.

S: I like the idea of expansion teams too. I don’t know if they’ve posted their brandings yet, or if they have, I just haven’t been around the site to notice it yet. Still getting the hang of everything in the SHL, but I think it would be a lot of fun to be a part of the inaugural team and group of players for that team. Especially now we’re coming in with their first season under their belts, I think it’ll be an exciting time in the draft with them as well. Maybe we’ll have a better idea of what they need and what approach the GMs are taking after the expansion draft happens.

W: Yeah any time you get to go into a team that is just starting off, you have a chance to set the traditions and the history of the team. So being there early can be a ton of fun, not to mention, usually because they’re so new, even with the expansion draft helping them out, there isn’t a ton of talent, so you have a better chance to start relatively early on in your career, that you might not get in a lot of other places. So while I’m willing to stay down as long as I need, for any team that drafts me, I can’t lie that the prospect of getting to play early on, so that I could potentially set records on my first ever player in this league, would be a lot of fun.

S: I can’t even think about setting records when I have to google what every stat means in the index. Alright, do you have any other thoughts for our first kind of Mooseguin chat here? I feel like we’ve covered a lot of great stuff, and I know that we’ll be back again with more interviews like this, maybe a podcast or two in the future.

W: You say that, but you weren’t overwhelmingly familiar with stats and numbers when you joined the ISFL either. But you can’t deny you get excited when Moose has a good season over there. Overall though, I think this has been a good introduction to us as users and what we plan for this league, and where we are going with it. I’m really hoping to make this a weekly thing so that we only have to put in some minimal effort going forward, so we can keep max earning.

S: If you made it this far! Thank you so much for reading and joining us today. I’m sure at some point we’ll come up with a fancy title, maybe even draw a logo like I’ve done for some ISFL podcasts, and it can become a regular media series.

***Inf1d3l*** · 05-26-2021, 06:40 AM

Really enjoyed this, and all the other articles the two of you have put out. Keep up the great work!

Also Penguins are da best!

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